By Friday evening, it wasn’t clear whether Saturday’s scheduled vote on the famous health care reform bill would happen on time in the House of Representatives, but Democrats were busy wooing any remaining potential supporters among their congressional ranks.
On Friday, Jason Rodriguez, a 40-year-old engineer who had been fired from an Orlando, Fla., construction firm two years ago, went back to his former office and opened fire, killing at least one person and wounding at least five others before fleeing to his mother’s house, where he was tracked down and arrested.
“Illegal protest” can count a new baritoned bedfellow. In an interview ahead of the Copenhagen climate change conference, former Vice President Al Gore pronounced civil disobedience to be justified, believing that the global warming crisis requires more forceful methods of political activism.
Honduras’ government is on the ropes again. Roberto Micheletti, the interim president, moved to form a new government after a deal to form a “unity” cabinet collapsed. Manuel Zelaya (pictured), the elected president ousted in a coup in June, is now urging a boycott of the election scheduled later this month.
In news that President Barack Obama described as “sobering,” the U.S. unemployment rate in October broke into the double-digit range, with 10.2 percent of Americans without jobs, the highest rate since April 1983.
By the end of the day, some confusion about Thursday’s shooting at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas had been cleared up. It turns out, according to later reports, that the military doctor shot at the scene, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, was the only gunman involved in the attack and that he was still alive in its aftermath.
Don’t be fooled by stimulus critics who cite expenditures such as the “electric fish orchestra” (actually an educational demonstration of a larger project related to robotics and prosthetics) or trips to resorts (to train special-ed teachers). “Waste,” as ProPublica reports, “is in the eye of the beholder.” (continued)
On Thursday afternoon, two gunmen in military uniforms opened fire in a processing center at the U.S. Army’s Fort Hood base in Texas, killing 12 people and wounding at least 31. According to The New York Times, the alleged shooters were U.S. Army soldiers but had not been identified yet. Updated
Thursday would have been a good day for members of Congress to use those underground tunnels to get around the Capitol. Outside, throngs of conservative protesters, heeding Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann’s loony call, converged on the Hill to demonstrate against the proposed health care bill—also known, in GOP-speak, as the first official step in the socialist takeover of our government.
U.N. inspectors have found “nothing to be worried about” in their first report after visiting a previously clandestine uranium-enrichment site south of Tehran. The clean assessment, which described the site as a “hole in a mountain,” may cause critics to now look for more diplomatic solutions to Iran’s nuclear program.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Adm. Mike Mullen, expects the Pentagon to request emergency financing for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a Bush-era tactic that uses “supplemental funding” to flesh out the already massive Pentagon budget to pay for the conflicts.
In the face of failing peace talks with Israel and a stalemate with rival Hamas, reports suggest that a frustrated Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will not seek re-election early next year.
What’s wrong with a $60,000 wand that can detect explosives and truffles from up to a kilometer away? Nothing, if it works. The U.S. military, technicians, journalists and people with eyes have been trying to get Iraqi officials to see reason, but that doesn’t bother one Gen. Jabiri, who says ... (Continued)
She admits she hasn’t always been a true believer in our country’s electoral system, but former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina is now hoping to become a major player in the U.S. political arena by challenging longtime California Sen. Barbara Boxer for her congressional seat in 2010.
Twenty-three CIA agents are going to have to think twice about leaving the U.S. now that an Italian court has convicted them in absentia for snatching an imam in Milan and sending him to Egypt, where the cleric says he was tortured. (continued)
Why did voters in Maine reject a law that would have sanctioned same-sex marriage? Well, according to some marriage equality supporters, one big reason currently resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and another has to do with conservative scare tactics played out via television ad campaigns.
In the aftermath of Afghanistan’s scuttled presidential runoff, Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, urged President Hamid Karzai to go after the corruption within his ranks. Meanwhile, Karzai’s former challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, advised his supporters to contain their discontent and avoid violence.
Tuesday’s elections were dispiriting in some ways for Democrats, particularly in Virginia and New Jersey (not to mention Maine, though that issue cuts across party lines), but the New York Daily News’ Michael McAuliff wonders whether another, more encouraging object lesson for 2010 might’ve happened in upstate New York.
The expression “as Maine goes, so goes the nation” has troubling implications if applied to the same-sex marriage movement, although “as goes California” might be a more accurate maxim. On Tuesday, voters in the Pine Tree State overturned a law that would have legalized gay marriage. (continued)
They may have lost the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia, but Democrats expanded their majority in the House of Representatives by one seat Tuesday. Bill Owens won a surprise victory after a bizarre race that saw a third-party conservative candidate drive the Republican in this staunchly GOP district out of the running and into the arms of the Democrats.
It was a night of disappointment for Democrats, who lost the governor’s mansion in New Jersey shortly after losing in Virginia. But was it a referendum on President Barack Obama’s agenda, as some pundits claimed, or testament to the unpopularity of incumbent governor and former Goldman Sachs CEO (great timing) Jon Corzine? (Continued)
He changed the rules, he put down the cash, and now New York City’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been re-upped for a third term, beating his Democratic competitor, City Comptroller Bill Thompson, by a slim margin on Tuesday.
A year ago, Virginia surprised the nation by skewing blue in the presidential election, handing Barack Obama a key win below the Mason-Dixon Line. However, this trend didn’t extend into the 2009 gubernatorial race in the state, as the majority of Virginians voted in favor of conservative Republican Bob McDonnell on Tuesday.
An Italian mom’s wish for her kids to have a secular education provided the catalyst for a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights to bar crucifixes from being displayed in Italy’s classrooms. Needless to say, the court’s decision didn’t sit well with the Vatican.
We can’t be certain why Louisiana Justice of the Peace Keith Bardwell quit his post Tuesday because his one-sentence resignation doesn’t say, but we can guess it has something to do with his refusal to preside over an interracial marriage—and the public outcry that soon followed.
America Performs Its Familiar Role of Propping Up a Dictator
